r again. We had hardly got started
before it began to rain, and just poured down all day long. But the
weather was pleasant, we took off our shoes and socks and rolled up our
breeches, after the manner heretofore described, and just "socked on"
through the yellow mud, whooping and singing, and as wet as drowned
rats. We reached Bolivar some time after dark. The boys left there in
camp in some way had got word that we were on the return, and had
prepared for us some camp-kettles full of hot, strong coffee, with
plenty of fried sow-belly,--so we had a good supper. What the object of
the expedition was, and what caused us to turn back, I have never
learned, or if I did, have now forgotten.

On returning to Bolivar we settled down to the usual routine of
battalion drill and standing picket. The particular guard duty the
regiment performed nearly all the time we were at Bolivar (with some
casual exceptions) was guarding the railroad from the bridge over
Hatchie river, north to Toone's Station, a distance of about seven
miles. Toone's Station, as its name indicates, was nothing but a
stopping point, with a little rusty looking old frame depot and a
switch. The usual tour of guard duty was twenty-four hours all the
while I was in the service, except during this period of railroad
guarding, and for it the time was two days and nights. Every foot of
the railroad had to be vigilantly watched to prevent its being torn up
by bands of guerrillas or disaffected citizens. One man with a
crow-bar, or even an old ax, could remove a rail at a culvert, or some
point on a high grade, and cause a disastrous wreck.

I liked this railroad guard duty. Between Bolivar and Toone's the road
ran through dense woods, with only an occasional little farm on either
side of the road, and it was pleasant to be out in those fine old
woods, and far away from the noise and smells of the camps. And there
are so many things that are strange and attractive, to be seen and
heard, when one is standing alone on picket, away out in some lonesome
place, in the middle of the night. I think that a man who has never
spent some wakeful hours in the night, by himself, out in the woods,
has simply missed one of the most interesting parts of life. The night
is the time when most of the wild things are astir, and some of the
tame ones, too. There was some kind of a very small frog in the swamps
and marshes near Bolivar that gave forth about the most plaintive
little cry